


A Complicated Christmas

by irishfino



Series: We Rise From Dust [12]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: F/M, Gen, omg it's christmas, westwells
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-03
Updated: 2017-07-03
Packaged: 2018-11-22 17:21:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11384853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/irishfino/pseuds/irishfino
Summary: HR gives Iris an important item. The twins are adorable. Joe eavesdrops and causes trouble. HR's dreams return.





	A Complicated Christmas

                Christmas is a time for family. And toys. And, oh, my god, is that the newest insert-techno-babble. It’s such a fun time. HR love, love, _loves_ decorating and wrapping gifts and surprising people. He was very surprised when Iris joined him in decorating the Cortex. She loves Christmas, she had told him, and that was the only reason she was helping with his decorating shenanigans this year. The Cortex looked wonderful covered in blinking multi-colored lights, red and green and silver tinsel, and, of course, a little bit of mistletoe hanging in the middle of the room. Spread the love, right? Christmas dinner would be at the West house and would feature the hellish combined concoction of two alcoholic grandmothers’ eggnogs. They might as well do shots instead, but HR went along with it, carefully sipping one part alcoholic grandmothers’ eggnog three parts plain eggnog. He was usually still buzzed in the morning, but it helped.

                HR is positively bouncing with energy. He’s an active man, maybe a little hyperactive at times, and always a hugging sort, but today he’s managed to be more so. Cisco notices, of course, when HR pats his back a little too hard and double-cheek kisses Cindy instead of his usual flirting hand kiss (Cisco can’t blame him, Cindy is hah- _ought_ , but it’s weird.). Joe chuckles when HR double-cheek kisses Cecile, but offers only a respectful handshake to him.

                “H!” shouts little Dawnie as she runs into the Cortex.

                “R!” shouts little Don as he runs in right after her.

                “My favorite children of all time!” HR says happily as he kneels, arms wide to hug the twin troublemakers. He sweeps them into his arms in a tight hug. “How are my favorite tiny tornados?”

                “Good! Merry Missmas!” Don and Dawn say in unison.

                “Merry Missmas,” he says with a laugh. “Shall we open presents?”

                “Yeah!” the twins shout in unison.

                Gifts are exchanged and torn open with giggling glee. They set aside the gifts for people who aren’t in attendance and have a grand old time with their new tech and toys and shiny things. Once everything is unwrapped and clean up has begun, HR takes Iris’ hand and leads her out of the Cortex. He leads her down the hall, but not into any room. After a brief look around to ensure they’re as alone as they can be, he pulls out a small jewelry box.

                “HR,” Iris starts carefully.

                “It’s not what you think,” he says quickly. “Well, sort of. It is a ring, but it’s not for you. Exactly.”

                “Okay,” she says slowly. “Go ahead.”

                “Thank you,” he says quietly. He clears his throat. “This is a family heirloom that was passed down to me by my mother the day I got married. It’s supposed to go to the girls in the family when they get married, but my mother only had me. An – anyway, I’m never going to have children of my own, I can’t, but I – I want to ask you to pass this on to Dawn the day of her wedding. Even if she doesn’t get married, I want her to have this. Can – can you give it to her? When she’s older, of course.”

                “HR,” Iris says softly. Her voice catches in her throat. “I’d be honored to give this to her.”

                “The honor is mine,” he replies quietly. “Thank you.”

                Iris takes the ring box and slides her arms around HR’s neck and smiles. He’s such a sweet man.

                “You’ll have to tell me about your first wife sometime,” she says quietly.

                He nods as he places his hands on her hips. “Of course. You two would have gotten along so well, I think Barry and I would have worried you two were going to ditch us and take off together.”

                “So she’s…” she says before trailing off.

                He nods and closes his eyes. “Yes. Younger than Barry when it happened. We’ll talk about it another time.” He opens his eyes and smiles. “For now, let’s celebrate the holidays and our family and our friends and we’ll go to the house, get stupidly drunk on eggnog, and ditch the kids with the grandparents so we can go unwrap each other.” He waggles his eyebrows. “I’ll even put a bow on.”

                “They’re already staying the night and I may have a little eggnog at home,” she replies suggestively.

                His jaw drops. “I didn’t think you could be more perfect. My mistake.”

                “I’ll forgive you. For now.”

                “Are you –” He studies her seriously for a moment, then, “Oh, gods, _yes_.”

                “Down a notch or you’ll get nothing.”

                “I’ll try,” he says, his voice playfully choked with effort. The fluttering eyelids really sell his silliness.

                “Do more than try,” she says with a laugh. “Come on, let’s get back to the Cortex.”

* * *

 

                Joe excuses himself to “go to the bathroom” a few minutes after HR and Iris disappear down the hallway. If they’ve gone off to be _alone_ for a few moments, he’ll give them that, then carefully interrupt them. There’s still dinner to get to and he doesn’t want to field curious questions from the twins.

_“The honor is mine,” he replies quietly. “Thank you.”_

He spots the ring box in Iris’ hand. He knows HR prides himself on being a “romantic”, but it’s a sudden and unexpected. He knows Iris is happy with HR, though those two still stumble when asked to describe their relationship. It’s not that new anymore, they should know and this is too far, too soon. He feels obligated to put a stop to this. He’ll have to corner HR later.

_“You’ll have to tell me about your first wife sometime,” she says quietly._

                There’s something to be said for being nosy and then misinterpreting a partially overheard conversation. There’s also something to be said for bringing down the holly jolly mood of Christmas with brooding. Cecile notices Joe’s shift in mood the second he returns to the Cortex. She had known, of course, that his “trip to the bathroom” was more than that, but now it appears he’s had his feelings hurt and will mope about it for a little while. Silly man. She’ll tug the truth out of him back at the house. Her grandbabies are just too cute to ignore.

* * *

 

                Iris and HR return to the Cortex to start packing up the gifts for the journey to the West house, where the twins will more than likely want their new toys along with the ones they haven’t unwrapped yet. They’ll get to keep one each with them, of course, no need to carry around an entire store’s worth of items, but there may be a slight fight about it. They’re kids.

                In the kitchen at the West house, HR is busy pouring a tiny, _tiny_ bit of spiked nog into a mug when he hears someone enter the kitchen. He looks over his shoulder and smiles.

                “Hey, Joseph!” he greets cheerfully. “You’ll forgive me if I water this down with a little more nog in my mug, won’tcha? I have _no_ alcohol tolerance.”

                He turns his head back to the counter and fills his mug with alcohol free nog. Ah, it’s nice to partake during the hols. Perfect. He turns around and leans his butt against the counter. Joe’s got that serious look on his face. That’s not good. His brow creases with worry.

                “What’s going on?” he asks.

                “I don’t approve,” Joe replies.

                “Hey, I’m being responsible! The last time I was drunk on nog I was unstoppable with the commentary! Also, I woke up and I was still drunk and that was really weird.”

                “I saw you in the hallway with Iris. I saw the ring box. I don’t approve.”

                “Okay,” he replies. He sets his mug down on the counter behind him. Time to get serious. “What, exactly, do you think you’re not approving of?”

                “I was quiet when you threw yourself into being a caretaker for the twins. I was quiet when you slept on Iris’ couch. I was even quiet when there was more than enough evidence to the two of you being intimate, but I won’t stay silent any longer. I don’t approve and you do not have my permission to marry Iris.”

                “I see.” He chews his bottom lip for a moment. “Pump the brakes a bit there, Joe, you’re getting too far ahead of where Iris and I are in our relationship. It’s never good to assume things and you assumed right to the moon. I think this is a conversation had at a better time, between all of us, that includes Iris, and I’m politely going to ask you to back off.”

                Joe crosses his arms. “And if I don’t?”

                He stares at Joe, his eyes slightly narrowed. “I understand your desire to protect Iris, but getting into the middle of her personal relationships is not the best way to do it. It shows that you don’t trust her as much as you should.” He shakes his head slightly. “But I get it. You had it all planned, you had the best man for your daughter picked out, and now she’s on her own with two kids and you think she’s vulnerable. I can’t tell what feels worse for me personally: that, after all this time, after everything that’s happened, you don’t trust me or that you still want to exert control over Iris’ life. Actually, that’s a lie. The worst feeling for me is that you want to exert control over Iris’ life.” He shakes his head and pushes away from the counter. “Enjoy your gift, Joe. Cecile will love it.”

                He leaves the kitchen as quickly as he can. He can feel the tears prickling at the corners of his eyes, his throat tightening and it’s horrible. He didn’t consider Joseph a close friend, but he still considered him a friend. Silly him.

                He yanks his jacket from the coat rack and is out the front door and down the stairs before anyone realizes he’s leaving. His breath instantly mists and hangs in the air. He’s always been a coward. He knows he’ll never measure up to Barry, he’s not trying to, but to have that ruler held up to him and know he’ll always come up short in the eyes of others, that’s the worst. He tugs his jacket on as the cold night air pierces his sweater. Damn it all. It had been a great party, a nice dinner, a joyous time. He didn’t want any of this right now and, yet, here it was, right in his face, bouncing around his brain.

                His phone vibrates in his pocket. He answers it, barely glancing at the screen long enough to see who’s calling.

                “Yeah?” he says quickly.

                “Where’d you go?” comes Iris’ concerned voice.

                He stops walking and squeezes his eyes closed. “Just out for a walk.”

                “HR.”

                He sighs and presses the index finger and thumb of one hand into his eyes before telling her what had just transpired between himself and Joe. Iris is calm, of course, she’s always calm, but it hurts to tell her this. Every word that tumbles out of his mouth feels like a personal failure.

                “Come back and we’ll go home, okay?” Iris says.

                “Okay. Yeah. Yeah, I’ll – I’m not far.” He turns on his heel and heads back toward the house. “Sorry for ruining Christmas.”

                “It’s not ruined and you did nothing wrong. We’ll go home.”

                He heads back to the West house and waits at the car. It’s a blue SUV and he loves the thing. He even learned to drive it! Iris desperately needed to upgrade with the twins and he had more than enough money to buy it outright with his last book deal. Iris comes out of the house a good ten minutes later. He can feel the cold in his bones by the time he sees her beautiful face. Maybe it’s his imagination, but he swears he warms up at the sight of her.

                The drive home is uneventful. He doesn’t ask what happened in the house after she hung up and she doesn’t offer. Perhaps it’s better unknown for now. Inside the loft, he takes her jacket and hangs it up before hanging up his own then he takes off his boots to keep the floor mostly dry. With a sigh, he flops onto the couch he spent many-a night sleep on. He knew why he slept on this couch, he knew why he stayed with the twins while they were in the hospital, he knew why he did what he did when he did it. It still hurt.

                Iris joins him on the couch a few minutes later. She puts her feet in his lap and he automatically starts kneading the bottom of her left foot. He decides to fill the silence with an explanation. He knows he doesn’t deserve this life or to be part of this family. Cisco wasn’t much help with the dream, but he knew it was important, and if that dream was a look into what should have been his fate then damn he’s a lucky man. It makes him feel horrible when he thinks how lucky he is because Barry is dead and his children never met him, never heard his voice, only know his face from pictures. He’s a selfish man. So, so selfish and unworthy of all of this.

                “There were two wars on my Earth in my lifetime,” he starts quietly. “The first war was simply called the Interdimensional War. It’s the war that spawned all the rules against interdimensional travel, though we didn’t have the tech for it yet and wouldn’t until recently. I was twenty and Berty, Liberty, my wife, was twenty-one.” He moves his thumbs from the middle of her foot to the pads of her toes. “We married young, real young, but we were happy. We were stupidly happy. We were meeting at a coffee shop for lunch – this was before the blight killed off the coffee crop – when the first set of attacks happened. It was simultaneous around the globe and, uh, they – they got us in Central and she, uh, she was killed.”

                Iris stays silent, but her heart aches for him. The fact that he’s distracting himself by rubbing her feet makes it sadder.

                “She was going to tell me something that day and I thought it was news of the house we had wanted to buy together to start our new life and – and it wasn’t. She was pregnant.”

                “Oh, my god,” Iris whispers. “HR…” Tears prickle and swell in her eyes. How had he managed to find happiness in life after such a horrible thing?

                “It’s okay.” He still doesn’t look at her. He can’t. Not yet. “So I – I did a dumb thing. I grabbed one of her cameras – she was a hobbyist – and I ran to the first newspaper that was desperate for idiots to run into bombed out cities and take pictures. The war was – was pretty bad. All of them are, but it’s so different when you’re there and watching. Anyway, I was injured, and exposed to a few chemicals and now have lost the chance to have my own children.” He moves his hands to her right foot. “So, when Barry died and you found out you were expecting children, I – I felt I had to be there. I would’ve wanted someone to be there for Berty if I had died instead and she would’ve needed so much support. I didn’t expect anything more to happen, I just – that kid gave up so much in such a short period of time and then to have to leave to protect his new family from some messed up version of himself? I – I couldn’t just – I couldn’t. I couldn’t. So, yes, it started somewhat selfishly, but it wasn’t malicious.”

                A long moment of silence stretches throughout the loft. There’s no tension, just silence.

                “We’re all a little selfish,” Iris says finally. “And you didn’t do anything to hurt me or the kids.”

                “Hurt Tracy,” he mumbles.

                “Yeah. You did and you’ll live with that the rest of your days.”

                “Yeah.”

                “Did you tell her any of what you just told me?”

                “Uh, no,” he says quietly. “I, uh, hadn’t gotten there yet. It’s – it’s hard to talk about.”

                “But she was understanding even if she didn’t know the underlying reason why you went whole hog.”

                He chuckles. “’Whole hog’. That’s funny.”

                She smiles then reaches for one of his hands. “I have something for you. I need my feet to get it.”

                He lets her feet go. He did say they didn’t have to exchange gifts, but they both knew they would. Christmas was just one of those holidays to the two of them. He watches her take the stairs to the loft two by two and wonders how he got so lucky. After a lifetime of failure and trickery he finally feels normal, like he belongs. It’s an amazing feeling.

                Iris returns with a small, brown box wrapped with a neat red bow and sits down next to him on the couch.

                “There are two things inside,” she says as she plops the box onto his lap.

                “Yeah?” he asks, excitement edging into his voice. “I feel like a boy on Christmas morning!”

                He carefully unties the bow and opens the box. There’s a long jewelry case inside and a black book. He pulls out the case first and opens with. His eyes widen as he takes in what’s inside. It’s a simple gold locket on a gold chain, but the locket is open and on each side is the smiling face of one of the twins.

                “They said they noticed you always wore a necklace and wanted to get you one,” she explains quietly.

                “And all I got them were tablets,” he says quietly. He runs his finger along the rim of the locket and smiles. “Those kids are amazing.”

                “Yeah. The other thing is a photobook. I took a lot of secret pictures on my phone of you and the twins napping on the couch so there will be a few in there.”

                “You sneak,” he chuckles.

                “I couldn’t help it; you guys were so cute. There are other pictures in there, too, but nothing else surprising.”

                “Should I look at it now and cry or wait until later to look at it and cry?”

                “Let’s look at it together.”

                There were so many pictures. There were pictures of the gang in the Cortex handling some emergency or something and still finding the time to laugh or smile. There were pictures of HR snoring away at a desk; he must have been editing his second book, that was a trying time for him. He laughs when he thinks of it now. They had been planning the baby shower when the little one decided to arrive much, much too soon. And, gosh, they looked even smaller in photo form! He looked like a horrible, tired mess in some of the pictures and he wasn’t the one who had had the kids! Goodness. Those days had been rougher than he remembered. The pictures of the twins first ride home are so lovely. They’re plump for their size and red in the face from their screaming. He can’t blame them, after being held as much as possible since they were born, being strapped into a small basket with tight straps could _not_ be more unpleasant.

                There were pictures of the biggest baby shower in all the land, or so HR had proclaimed at the time. Linda had been the main organizer, but HR had been in charge of decorations and did he decorate the place! Blue, pink, purple, green, every color he could find because gendered colors are boring and look at these green bottles, Iris, they’re adorable! He organized games alongside Cindy who secretly loved babies – secretly because no one asked, not that she was hiding it – and all things baby related. It had been a fun time.

                And, of course, the pictures Iris had taken in secret of him sleeping on the couch with the twins. The twins didn’t move much when they slept, they slept like rocks, but it is amazing to see a timeline of their growth. They go from fitting side by side comfortably, to not so comfortably, to one twin tucking their little body between one of HR’s arms and his side and the other laying on his chest. And once or twice one twin sleeping on his head or pretending to sleep on his head. They’re much too big now and it’s a sad thought. Kids grow up so darn fast. Luckily, they’re still little cuddle bugs. Unluckily, some night, they barge into the bedroom and sleep between himself and Iris. He wouldn’t trade that for the world.

                By the end of the photobook, HR is a bundle of emotions.

                “Thank you,” he says sincerely. “I will treasure this always.”

                “Good,” Iris replies quietly. “We love you.”

                “I love you guys, too. So much.”

                “Ready to unwrap your next present?”

                “Another one?” He blinks before he realizes what she means. He grins. “ _Yes_. Lead the way.”

* * *

 

                There’s an accident. The car rolls one, two, three times then stops on the roof and skids. He can feel the panic in his throat, the fear tearing at his gut, but he can’t hear a damn thing. He knows he’s worried about his passenger. She’s a silent blur, but she’s awake and that’s good. Then footsteps. _Yes_ , thank _God_ , someone is here to help them. A face, another blur, garbled words, panic. He screams something before being ripped from the car and tossed onto the side of the road. Confusion. The man is speaking, but it’s garbled nonsense. His voice changes pitch repeatedly, though his blurred expression never shifts. The man pulls some sort of device from his inner jacket pocket. Fresh panic. Something is about to happen. The man stabs him and he feels his entire body lock up. He’s frozen in place. What the hell was he stabbed with and why – why does everything feel… so – He feels as if he’s being sucked through a straw. Is it shock? Is that why he can’t feel anything but the strange sensation of being transferred bit by bit through a cable? He tries to scream and finds himself gasping awake where he should be.

                “HR?” Iris asks sleepily, turning over to face him. “You okay?”

                He slowly sits up and rubs the spot over his heart where he swears that man stabbed him.

                “Another dream,” he says breathlessly. “A bad one.”

                “Cocoa?”

                “No, no thank you. I – I’m going to be downstairs for a while.”

                “Writing?”

                “Yeah, I don’t want to forget any details.” Though he doubts he could.

                “If you get lonely, come back to bed.”

                “Yeah.”

                He has a feeling he won’t be going back to sleep any time soon.


End file.
